Ever think you're paying way to much in auto insurance?

Well not to worry, Allstate insurance seems to think our drivers are developing valuable skills, while also wasting time here at Gamesville!

According to CNN reports, Allstate insurance is examining the possibility of offering insurance discounts to drivers who play computer games. Allstate is currently conducting a program to found out if computer games can enhance mental agility and turn those over 50 years old into better drivers.

Under this new pilot program, called InSight, Allstate will offer specialized computer games to 100,000 customers in Pennsylvania aged 50 to 75. The various drivers will be recommended to complete at least 10 hours of training. Allstate will decide next year whether or not to implement the program in other states.

Simply put, "Could playing computer games enhance mental agility enough to turn people over 50 into better drivers?" Can wasting time here at Gamesville actually improve your mental preparedness for the roads? We'd love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment and let us know what you think.

News Source: CNN
Picture curtosey of BBC News

Hollywood lost a legendary actor and humanitarian this past week when it was announced on Friday that Paul Newman had died after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.

Newman, an Oscar-winning superstar whoes credits include leading roles in "The Sting,'' "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Color of Money", was the recipient of two honorary Academy Awards and had been nominated for 10 Academy Awards during his career. Known for both his long Hollywood career and charitable donations, Newman will be remembered as one of film's most popular stars.

Below: A video clip from 1967's "Cool Hand Luke", Paul Newman as Luke Jackson sings Plastic Jesus upon hearing the news of his mother's death.

Friend of Gamesville, Andy on the Road, has posted a series of Newman tribute videos. Click through to see more...

Looking for more ways to connect with Gamesville? We have another exciting announcement about how you can keep up to date with the happenings here at  Gamesville!

The GV team has begun posting updates on our Gamesville Twitter account.

What's Twitter? Twitter is a free service that lets anybody exchange ideas, thoughts and feelings in a few sentences or less. It can be really useful. And it can be an addictive, enjoyable waste of time. Wait--did someone say "addictive, enjoyable waste of time"? We're there! Connect with us on Twitter to get up-to-the minute updates on Gamesville, experience new useless web tricks, and more.

To give you an explination in plain english, The CommonCraft Show has created a video to explain exactly how people use and interact with Twitter:

Stay current with the latest news from the Gamesville Blog and the random musings of our team by following us on Twitter.

For all you Gamesvillers who are also Facebookers we have some exciting news on how you can stay connected with your favorite gaming destination, Gamesville has just published a Facebook Fanpage!

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites nowadays and is a great way to connect with friends, family and companies to keep up with what they are doing. With Facebook people add friends, send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. We are going to be rolling out more on this page in the future and it will naturally serve as a great way to see what's new here at Gamesville.

We’d love for you to become our friends/fans on the Gamesville Fanpage. So connect with us, post on our wall, send us all your funny videos or stories, and post your fan photos or pictures of your pets to our new Fanpage.

Want to get up close and personal? Friend Gamesville Vegas on Facebook to interact with Gamesville, one on one.

We're humbled by the enthusiastic response to our free Gamesville Bumper Stickers campaign. And ectastic that folks are sending us photos of where they're sticking them.

Today's submission comes from Gamesviller Ohryankelley from Boston, Massachusetts, proudly displaying his sticker on the bumper of his car:

Everyone at GV HQ was so impressed with Ohryankelley's enthusiasm that we had him over to the office. As it turned out, his background and skills were a perfect match for us. So we've brought him aboard full-time to help manage our growing GV community.

Welcome aboard, Ohryankelley! Hope you survive the experience.

Want to talk with Ohryankelley, or share photos of your Gamesville bumper sticker "in action"?

Send your correspondence to: members@gamesville.com

To spice things up as the weather grows cooler, we're offering 5,000 GV Rewards to any member who submits a photo of their free GV bumper sticker--and a cool 10,000 GV Rewards to those we feature in the Gamesville Blog.

AND, as an added bonus, if we feature your photo we'll send you another bumper sticker to give to a friend or loved one. No envelope necessary; the second one is on us!

(Don't have a free Gamesville bumper sticker yet? Get your free Gamesville bumper sticker today.)

In a world of movie trailers, Don LaFontaine was the master. He died yesterday, at age 68.

LaFontaine's baritone voice and dramatic delivery are most often associated with the movie trailer catchphrase, "In a world..." But he's done thousands of television commercials, network promotions, and video game trailers.

(At one point, he was so pressed for time during the workday that he told his a driver to just take him from studio to studio in order to save time finding parking spaces!)

LaFontaine is survived by his wife, Nita Whitaker, and three children.

Source: CNN

Below: This GEICO commercial for auto insurance (besides just being funny) demonstrates that LaFontaine could poke fun at himself and his famous catchphrase...

Actor Julius J. Carry, III--best known around GV HQ as the Shogun of Harlem, Sho'nuff, in the classic 1980's kung-fu comedy flick The Last Dragon--passed away August 19. He was 56.

Here, Mr. Carry gets to chew the scenery as the over-the-top villain Sno'nuff (a performance we still reference 20+ years later): 

"Who da mastah?"

"Sho'nuff!"

Rest in peace, Mr. Carry.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Gamesville is growing again! We're now searching for awesome, Boston-area Flash game developers. For more information, go to our jobs page: http://www.gamesville.com/media/hiring.htm

Estelle Getty, best known around Gamesville HQ for starring as the sarcastic Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls, died Tuesday morning, three days shy of her 85th birthday. According to her official website, she passed away in her own home, surrounded by family.

I have fond memories of watching The Golden Girls as a kid. Most of the jokes went over my head, even as they made my mother blush, so it wasn't until later years that I fully got "it". And that only made it funnier.

Check out some classic clips of Estelle in action below, and feel free to share your memories (and favorite Golden Girl moments).

Last week, enhanced regional locks were placed on Gamesville's free games with cash prizes to prevent ineligible players from playing and winning those particular games.

Thanks to the well-reasoned, passionate comments of many players from around the world--including but not limited to brandy22342, targo3, hbaf4x, lynn61611, and many others--we're updating this policy to still satisfy our lawyers but, also, help reunite the worldwide Gamesville community.

As of today, Gamesville's free games with cash prizes, such as Bingo Zone or Magic 21, can be played by people worldwide, no matter where they are, but only residents of the United States, Canada (excluding Quebec), and the United Kingdom will be eligible to win cash prizes.

This means, you can play and chat with your friends, no matter where they're located in the world. Also, in the not-too-distant future, everyone will be able to use their GV Rewards for things besides badges and sweepstakes entries ... but more on this in a few months.

Please know, the entire Gamesville community is very important to us, and we very much appreciate your passion and your patronage. Every day, you have the opportunity to help shape Gamesville by giving us your feedback and ideas on what you would like to see next. And, certainly on this topic, your voices were heard and, I think, the community and the site are definitely the better for it.

Sincerely,
Chris Cummings
Manager, Gamesville.com

To clear your browser's cache and download the current page, open your web browser (probably Internet Explorer or Firefox), go to "Tools" then "Internet Options" and choose "Delete Files." After you have done this, restart your browser and go back to Gamesville. You should now be able to play.

• Windows (Internet Explorer or Firefox): ctrl + f5
  
• Mac (Firefox): command + shift + r
• Mac (Safari): command + r

You may also want to sign out and then sign back in again.

If none of those actions clears out the old version of the page, your ISP may have cached the page on your behalf.

To force your ISP to pick up the revised page, add "?z=1" to the end of the page URL.

For example, Bingo Zone would go from:

http://www.gamesville.com/games/bingoZone

to:

http://www.gamesville.com/games/bingoZone?z=1

(That extra "?z=1" can be added to any lobby page URL.)

If you try all this, and it still doesn't work, please contact customer service for assistance.